Famous house opens for tour

POLSON - A special open house last Wednesday had more than 200 curious attendees visit a home featured in a 1955 film.

As part of Polson's centennial celebration, the Victorian structure, originally built in 1910 according to current owner Gene Johnson, hosted an open house and helped raise more than $2,000 for the Flathead Lake Historical Museum, which sponsored the event.

"We thought there'd have been 50 [attendees], maybe," Johnson said.

Instead, visitors came from throughout the Mission and Flathead Valley and beyond, whether to support the museum, to mingle with friends and neighbors at the official grand opening of one of the oldest houses in Polson or for many, out of plain curiosity.

"My parents played cards at the Donovan's two doors down, so I grew up here, but I didn't know this house was here as a kid," Laurie Gregory, who attended with her husband Dennis, said.

There's a lot to the 100-year-old, four bedroom, three bathroom structure at 202 Third Ave. E. in Polson that drew such a crowd. Johnson originally bought the house in 2007 after his wife, Inger, was severely injured in a Jan. 2007 car accident.

"On Jan. 3 [2007], my wife Inger and I were returning home from Kalispell to Polson about 9 p.m.," a letter to the editor printed in the Leader three weeks after the accident read. "Five miles south of Lakeside an oncoming Ford Expedition crossed the centerline and hit us head on...Later we learned that [Inger] had a shattered knee, splintered bones protruding through the skin of her left leg, two broken left arm bones, a sliced ear and many abrasions. And she was rapidly losing blood."

The accident put things in perspective, Gene said, and they bought the home months later as a healing tool.

"Just the idea that you don't know what's going to come next, that really appealed to Inger," Gene said.

While the interior, almost all original, was in "rough shape," Gene said the house has come far along in the last few years. Inger is an interior designer so her passion has been a creative outlet, he said.

"It was a lot of work but it turned out real nicely and now we're just painting the outside," Gene said. "My wife has pretty much every corner covered with knickknacks and antiques."

Then, there's the cameo appearance the home made in the 1955 movie "Timberjack." Filmed in Bonner, Polson and Glacier National Park, a special screening was held at the Showboat Cinema after the open house so visitors could see the celebrity home on the big screen.

"I saw the film when I was 10 and I don't remember seeing the house, so this time I'll be looking for it," Dennis Gregory said.

So many people showed up, museum board member Lynn Sherrick said, that they needed to run a 7 and 9 p.m. showing to get everyone in.

"The owners of the movie theater couldn't remember when they've sold out a movie with an average age of 50," Sherrick said.

During the open house, Stan Cohen, a publisher in Missoula, showed off a binder filled with still shots of the cast and crew during the filming of the movie.

"The world premiere of the movie was held simultaneously at the Wilma in Missoula and in Polson," Cohen said. "But the theater here started the movie one minute before Missoula so they could be the first ones."

All in all it was a good premiere for their newly remodeled home. The Johnsons plan on using the structure for fundraisers in the future, but will make the house available on a case-by-case basis for community causes.

"This is an outstanding success," Lynn's husband Steve said. "The Johnsons' have really been good to the museum with this today."